Financial Aid Distribution at King Hall

In a previous post, I noted that there was little detail published on the distribution of financial aid at King Hall. Well, ask and you shall receive! I scheduled an appointment with the Dean of Admissions, Sharon Pinkney, and the Director of Financial Aid, Lawrence Gallardo. They were very helpful in describing how financial aid is distributed at King Hall. 

For a refresher, this is where we started. 

I noted that this information was not very helpful because it does not break down the distinction between merit and need based aid, it gives averages instead of means, it uses tuition instead of total cost of attendance as a reference, and it did does not describe how financial aid for each student is determined. Here are (some) answers:

Need based aid at King Hall is given in grants

• Grants comprised $7.3 million of the total $8.3 million of financial aid distributions in 2011-12
• Grants for the 2013-14 school will range from $14,000-30,000 with a median of $25,000
• Grants are distributed on a formula using inputs from FAFSA and the NeedAccess form
• Approximately 70% of King Hall students receive need based grants

Merit based aid at King Hall is given in scholarships

A list of all scholarships available to King Hall students is now listed in my previous post

• Most of these scholarships are endowed by alumni or other organizations
• The criteria for these scholarships is not published
• There is a committee that distributes the scholarships. I do not know who is on the committee.
• King Hall Academic Excellence Scholarship is $10,000 to students in the top 10% of their class 

Scholarships for admitted students
As noted in my previous post, one of the stated purposes at King Hall is to attract the best and most diverse class. To do this, we offer some merit based scholarships for admitted students.

• Scholarships to Admitted Students range from $5,000/year to $20,000/year 
• The distribution of scholarships broken down into quartiles is:
• 25%- $5,500 
• 50% - $9,300 
• 75% - $11,000 

Total Financial aid packages for all students at King Hall who receive any Financial Aid*
For 2011-2012, the quartiles of total financial aid packages to King Hall students who received some Financial Aid were:

• 25th -- $13,000
• 50th -- $23,000 
• 75th -- $27,000 

*I misspoke at the Budget Committee Town Hall on Wednesday, stating that these numbers represent the total financial aid packages to all King Hall Students. Not all King Hall Students receive Financial Aid.  As shown in the pie chart above, the number of King Hall Students who do not receive any Financial Aid is 3%, about 18 students. Adding these students into the quartiles would lower each quartile slightly. I do not currently have the quartiles that incorporate these students.


In summary, need based aid comprises most of the financial aid distribution at King Hall. This is distributed by Lawrence Gallardo, using a formula that takes into account the expected family contribution from FAFSA as well as family income reported in the Need Access Form. There are some scholarships available, but how to apply for them and who receives them is relatively opaque. Most students receive some form of Financial Aid. For those that do, half receive $23,000 or more.

These distributions drastically change the sticker price of attending King Hall. In 2011-12 school year, the estimated total cost of attendance was $65,249. But most students did not pay the full sticker price. They paid (or took out loans) for sticker price - financial aid package. Doing some subtraction, here are the quartiles of the actual cost of attending King Hall (defined as total cost of attending - financial aid) for students who received some financial aid in 2011-12:

• 25% - $38,249
• 50% - $42,249
• 75% - $52,239

 Remember, these distributions do not include the 18 students who paid the full $65,249. Prospective students who are deciding which law schools to apply to and attend, these distributions should be  numbers that they should ask for and compare. The fact that half the students pay $42,249 or less to attend King Hall makes King Hall a much more competitive law school on price. However, law schools are not in the habit of publishing these distributions so we can't make these comparisons. If all law schools published the distributions of actual cost of attending for all students, then there could be a real analysis of the cost of attending law school today.